Highlights two significant events; the conference on family health, which was held in Canberra 22–25 May 1996 and a report concerning a major US longitudinal study of the effects of day care on the development of infants and young children.

The director's report discusses findings from a longitudinal study of the effects of day care on the development of infants and young children sponsored by the US National Institutes of Child Health and Development (NICHD). Due to the increasing numbers of American women entering the paid workforce and the consequential increasing numbers of infants and young children experiencing non maternal child care, it was decided by the NICHD to establish a longitudinal study of the effects of non maternal care. The author looks at the lessons for Australia from the data from the NICHD early child care research project and notes four points: the importance of quality of child care; the extent to which access to quality child care is related to family income; that exposure to regular non maternal child care is not damaging in and of itself to the development of infant mother attachment; and that Australia needs to conduct a study such as that sponsored by the NICHD in the United States to ensure quality service provision.